


The Cave

by LulaMadison



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, Gen, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaMadison/pseuds/LulaMadison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on Norsekink, which again I originally posted and then couldn't stop writing.</p><p>When Loki let go of the spear Thor fell with him. Now they are trapped in a distant and uninhabited realm with almost no food or water. Loki takes care of an injured Thor with little regard for his own worsening health</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cave

The first thing Loki noticed when he woke was that his head hurt. The second thing was that the unbearably heavy weight that was resting across his left leg was his brother.

“Thor!” he snapped, trying to extricate himself and finding it impossible. “Get off me you fat oaf!”

Thor was a dead weight and Loki briefly considered turning into an animal, maybe a bird or a snake, but then realized he didn't know how much of him would STILL be under his unconscious brother if he did. He decided against it and simply started gently kicking Thor with his other foot till he stirred.

"Wake up you idiot,” Loki shouted as Thor groaned. “You are crushing me.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, rolled over allowing Loki to free himself and then screamed in agony, clutching his leg.

“Have you injured yourself?”

“My leg. The pain is terribly bad.”

Loki knelt to look at the injury, producing a knife that was hidden somewhere in his robes, he began to cut the material of Thor's breeches and revealed a lump half way up his thigh, already a sickening black color.

“Hmmmm it looks like it may be broken,” Loki said, then he smiled wryly. “This is quite typical of you Thor, I provide you with a soft place to land and still you damage yourself. Always have to be the center of attention.”

“Can you fix it with your magic? Can you heal it?”

“Of course I can, but I will have to straighten the bone first and that will hurt a great deal.”

“Do it,” Thor said, his face taut with tension and obvious pain. He wadded up the edge of his cape and shoved it into his mouth.

Loki sat on the floor opposite Thor and placed his foot in the crease of Thor's thigh who looked at him oddly.

“I need some traction, if I just pull it I shall simply end up dragging you across the floor,” he said and Thor nodded as Loki took hold of his foot. “What I'll do next is-”

Loki pulled without warning and Thor screamed, the noise incredibly loud even though 3 layers of cape.

“Why did you do that!” Thor gasped after removing the material from his mouth.

“I believed the element of surprise would make it more bearable.”

“It did not.”

“Well then I apologize.”

“Thank you.”

“Shall we get this healed then?” Loki asked with a smile.

Thor observed his brother as he worked his hands over his thigh, peeling back the cloth and working out the bruises. He seemed remarkably bright, perhaps a little _too_ bright, for one who had just attempted to wipe out an entire race and then allowed himself to plunge into the void without a care for whether he survived or not.

“After this we shall have to find shelter,” Loki babbled, rocking on the balls of his feet as he worked. “If we climb the hills to the rocks above there may be a cave system, or if we head down the valley we may come across a forest where we can build something from fallen branches or perhaps…”

Loki stopped. His hands shook for a brief moment, and Thor watched as his eyes rolled up into his head, then he collapsed flat onto his back, unconscious.

 

Loki was woken by the sound of his name being called repeatedly. His head throbbed miserably, a pain that got worse when he forced his eyes open.

“What happened?” he asked sitting up, and then wished he hadn't as spots clouded his vision.

“You were healing my leg and you passed out.”

“Oh,” Loki mumbled, “That is unfortunate. Is it healed?”

“There is still pain,” Thor replied “But I do not think you should try healing it further, if it will cause you injury.”

“Perhaps the fall affected me more than I first thought,” he said with a small sigh, as he looked up at the mountains above them.

“Maybe you landed on that big brain of yours and scrambled it,” Thor said with a smile.

Loki grinned and said, “Or more likely someone considerably larger and heavier than I landed on me in a very ungracious manner.”

“We need to find shelter,” Thor said. “Do you think we should go down the valley or up into the hills?”

“I suspect that _I_ should go up the hills since you are in no condition to be walking around,” Loki said standing up and surveying the horizon.

“What? You're leaving me here?”

“Thor… Do you fear I will not return for you? That perhaps I might leave you here for the scavenging creatures that inhabit this realm to find?”

“No brother, I trust you.”

“Maybe you should not,” Loki said over his shoulder as he walked off, leaving Thor sat alone in the dirt.

 

**

 

Loki had been gone a long time. Thor had shuffled round as best he could to watch him climb the dusty, orange, rock-strewn hill, and as his head had disappeared from view and not returned, Thor felt a mild spike of panic that perhaps his brothers final words to him had not actually been a joke.

The panic grew as the time passed. Thor tried to formulate a plan of how he would defend himself should ravening wolves suddenly appear, but could think of no course of action that did not end with him being dragged away screaming and turned into supper for a hungry pack.

“Thor!” a voice shouted from the distance, and he wheeled his head round to see Loki half walking, half stumbling down a steep incline and relief washed through him. “I found the perfect place!”

“Is it far?” Thor had asked when Loki returned. “I am not sure if I can walk, brother.”

“No matter,” Loki said cheerfully, then he ripped off Thor's cape and laid it on the ground. “Get on.”

“You want me to sit on the cape?”

“No, I want you to lay on the cape,” He said. “It will make you much easier to pull up the slope if you are laid down.”

“You are going to _pull_ me?”

“Can you think of a better way? If I allowed you to lean on my shoulder and hop, not only would it take us 3 days to reach the cave, but you would probably do yourself more damage.”

Loki helped Thor move onto the cape, jarring his injured leg as little as possible, then picked up the shoulder clasps and started to pull.

“Perhaps if you ate less this would be a much easier task,” he said, struggling to get any kind of momentum going.

“Perhaps if you trained more you would have had the strength to put me over your shoulder and carry me like a maiden,” Thor laughed.

“Touché” Loki replied.

 

It was taking forever. Loki cursed every time he lost his grip on the cape, or his feet slipped on loose rocks. His hands were becoming sore, threatening to blister, and sweat dripped from his brow. Half way up the sharp incline Loki slumped down saying he needed a rest, and Thor was glad of it as every jolt was sending spears of pain up his thigh, which he endured without complaint.

“It will be dark in a few hours,” Loki said gloomily after a while. “We should move again, I do not wish to be stumbling around in around the dark.”

“Brother you need to rest.”

“And if I fall and end up as useless as you what will become of us then, you imbecile?” he snapped.

“Loki…”

“NO! That is the end of the matter,” he said, picking up the cape again. “We carry on.”

 

Loki cried out with irritation as he tried to pull the cape over the brow of the hill, the last, but also steepest section of the climb. His face was bright red now, and his hair hung in sweaty tendrils around his face.

“Brother you need to stop.”

“No Thor! NO! I will not stop!” he shouted, wrapping the cape round his bleeding hands to try and get a better grip. “We are going to get to this cave even if it kills me.”

He pulled, sometimes taking steps and then sliding back down further than he had come on the loose shale, but finally they crested the hill, and once Thor was laid on flat even ground Loki collapsed to his knees and vomited out the contents of his stomach, then rolled away from it.

Flat on his back, chest heaving with exhaustion, only one thought played across his mind.

“We should have gone downhill,” Loki said.

 

The cave was deep, but free from damp. It appeared a creature may have once made its home there, and Thor hoped it would not return.

“Hold your hands out,” Loki said, summoning ice with one hand and then fire with the other, melting it so it ran into Thor's cupped hands, and he drank it greedily.

“Perhaps you should not be doing magic brother till you have recovered from your fall,” Thor said and Loki snorted, as if insulted.

“Fire and ice are simple spells that even you would be able to perform if you had bothered to learn. Healing someone else is a very complex and taxing spell for the caster,” he explained as he stripped off Thor's armor and then his own, leaving them both in soft under shirts.

“Thank you for trying Brother,” Thor said. “It is a lot less painful now.”

Loki moved away and started piling up wood and dry grasses that he had dragged into the cave, and with a simple wave of the fingers he soon had a roaring fire that bathed the cave with heat and flickering golden light.

“I suggest you rest now Thor. It has been a long day.”

Thor sat in silence for a moment watching as Loki spread his cape on the floor, laid on it and wrapped it round himself like a blanket.

“Why did you tell me father was dead?” Thor asked, finally feeling able to broach the subject now that they had a quiet moment.

“I do not wish to discuss such matters now Thor,” he replied, turning over so his back was facing his brother. “You should sleep.”

“No Loki, I wish to know.”

“Shut up Thor and leave me be. I need to rest if I am to go out and find supplies tomorrow,” Loki hissed and pulled his cape over his head.

“Supplies?”

“Food, Thor,” He snapped back, pulling the cape down briefly and popping his head up. “We will need to eat unless you plan on starving to death before the glorious All-Father arrives to take you home.”

“Take US home,” Thor corrected.

Loki did not reply, he pulled the cape back over his head, and rolled away from Thor, ignoring any further questions.

 

**

 

Loki was woken by the first watery light of dawn creeping into the cave. The fire had long since gone out, and now he exhaled puffs of white smoke as he breathed between his chattering teeth. Keeping the cape wrapped round himself as best he could, he shuffled over to the burnt out fire and reignited it.

“Some frost giant you are,” he mumbled to himself as he rubbed his icy hands together, ignoring the rumbling sound coming from his stomach, and his aching muscles.

It was a long time before Thor awoke, blinking at the cave walls, taking a moment to remember where he was.

“I thought it might have been a dream,” he said.

“Well, it is not,” Loki said, his knees tucked up to his chest and his cape wrapped tightly around himself, “And perhaps nightmare might be a more appropriate description.”

“I need to…” Thor's voice drifted off. “I need to relieve myself.”

“I am not carrying you outside. Do it on the floor and I will use magic to remove it from inside the cave.”

“That is disgusting Loki.”

“Would you rather I used magic to remove it from inside _you_?”

“No.”

“Exactly,” Loki said, a note of irritation in his voice as he turned his head to allow Thor a meager amount of privacy.

“Can you not go outside while I do this?”

“It is cold outside, I wish to stay here by the fire.”

It took Thor forever to start and then once he did he couldn't stop, and soon a steaming pool of water was trickling across the cave floor.

“Thor, you piss like a horse!” Loki said wrapping his cape over his nose to try to block the smell.

“It was your idea,” Thor stated, and Loki did not reply.

 

The cave clean and Thor's thirst sated, Loki eventually set out to explore the landscape. Wherever they had landed was indeed beautiful with its towering columns of orange sandstone, but it was also barren and devoid of life, save for some dead trees and acres of withered scrub grass, which he gathered and formed into a pile, intending to collect it on his way back.

Loki considered the possibility that out here in the wilderness if he wandered too far he would be unable to find the cave again, so plucked a fair sized branch from a dead tree and ran it along the ground as he walked to mark a path home, as he headed downhill to what he hoped was a valley. A valley might mean water, water would mean vegetation, and perhaps even animals that he could trap.

An hour later he arrived in the valley and found only a dried up riverbed. He poked at the cracked ground with his stick and sighed, looking around him briefly before deciding to carry on walking along the riverbed in the hope of finding something edible.

The sun was directly overhead now and Loki paused to summon a small amount of ice to cool his parched throat when he saw something white, half buried in dried mud, out of the corner of his eye. Using his stick he dug enough of the mud from around the object so he could get two fingers round it and then pulled as hard as he could till it came free from the earth.

Loki stared at it briefly and then laughed. It was a skull, a skull with two beautiful curved horns that reminded him of his helmet. While he pondered the similarity briefly he knew it meant one thing – there were animals in this realm, and they would not starve if he could find them.

 

The sun was dipping in the sky as Loki returned to the cave with the skull, and armfuls of dead tree limbs and dried grasses that would keep the fire lit for at least 2 days, but he had found no food. He paused, feeling guilty at his failure and dropped his wood on the ground before kneeling beside it.

He whispered an incantation under his breath, moving his hands and watched as tendrils of smoke formed a shape. He formed it in his mind's eye, a bright colored bird with large plump breasts and fat legs that was similar enough to game birds on Asgard, but different enough that Thor would not be suspicious that he had conjured it up. He finished the words of the spell and the bird sprang into reality, his hands tight around its neck, he twisted them with a satisfying crunch. They would eat tonight.

Loki sat back feeling dizzy and slightly sick at the effort the spell had taken. He had not realized he was still so drained from the fall, and slumped backwards until the ground stopped spinning.

 

Thor beamed at him when he returned triumphant from the hunt, and laughed when Loki showed him the skull he had found.

“We can cut most of it free and use it as a cup to drink from,” Loki said. “It will mean much less wastage than using hands.”

“Yes,” Thor said, “And when we aren't drinking you can wear it on your head, it will make a fine replacement helmet.”

Loki dragged Thor outside to relieve himself, and then sat him with his back to the cliff face so they could enjoy the sunset together as their bird roasted over a roaring fire.

“This is indeed a beautiful realm,” Thor said as he watched the sun vanish over the horizon, its last rays making the very ground itself look like it was on fire, “And bountiful too, if that bird is an example of the creatures that live here.”

“Aye,” Loki said, working on separating the dome of the skull from its base with a knife. “We will have no trouble finding enough to eat here.”

 

**

 

It was Thor's idea to place a mark on the wall of the cave for each day they had been there, and soon Loki secretly cursed him for it as the marks mounted and represented just how long they had been lost.

Every day Loki set out to find food, finding the journey more tiring each time, but would return with nothing except firewood and a creature he had created himself. He did what he could to keep Thor's spirits high, telling tales of their youth, of shared adventures and happier days.

When Thor would talk of not being found Loki would remind him that Heimdall was probably watching them right now, and the All-Father was no doubt attempting to repair the Bifrost so they could be rescued.

“What if they don't find us?” Thor had asked him one night.

“Don't be ridiculous Thor, of course they will find us. Do you think father would ever stop looking for his golden son?”

“He will be looking for us both,” Thor said, and Loki laughed as he pulled off his boots.

“If he is looking for me it will be only so he can meet out a suitable punishment for my crimes,” He replied, and Thor had remained silent for the rest of evening.

 

One morning, as Loki dragged Thor outside the cave, they heard a familiar sound and their eyes shot up to the sky to search for the source.

“Look Thor!” Loki shouted, his hand pointing at a black dot in the distance. “It is Huginn! Father has sent a sign!”

They both watched as the raven wheeled in the sky and then came straight towards them, flying over their heads, and then off over the mountains.

“He knows where we are,” Loki said with a smile. “He will come for us soon, you must not give up hope.”

Thor smiled up at him, looking brighter and more hopeful than he had in days. The Raven returned from then on, every morning at the same time, cawing a plaintive chorus at dawn and cheering them for the day ahead. A small sign that they were not alone.

 

 

Loki had found nothing again that day, save for a large black beetle, which he speared through the head with his knife and then ate out of sheer desperation, its thick shell crunching between his teeth. He knew his magic was not recovering, and each time he created a bird it grew smaller. Loki would give the majority of the meat to Thor, reasoning that his brother was recuperating from a major injury and needed it to heal. When Thor had regained his strength they would be able to move on, perhaps find a less barren place where prey would be plentiful, and then he would be able to rest enough to allow his magic to be restored.

 

Loki sat by his woodpile to recite the now familiar spell, struggling to control the misty tendrils, and finding it hard to picture a bird in his mind's eye. He concentrated as hard as he could, feeling a dull throbbing pain begin to build behind his eyes, and when the bird finally formed and became reality Loki felt so weak and dizzy that it escaped from his uncoordinated hands and shot across the scrub grass out of sight.

Loki screamed in frustration, flopped forward till his forehead was resting on the dirt and started to cry.

 

It was dark when Loki arrived back at the cave, and dropped his pile of wood.

“Where have you been? Are you alright?” Thor asked, slight alarmed by the slightly wild look in his brothers eyes.

“I did not catch anything,” he said, fidgeting and rubbing his hands together.

“Do not fret Loki, we will survive. You will find something tomorrow,” Thor said, and watched as his brother lay down on his cape and wrapped it around himself like a shroud without a further word.

 

Loki had woken early the next day, dragged from sleep by the cold and the gnawing hunger pains in his belly. He was alarmed to find that even summoning ice and fire was becoming more difficult now, and after helping Thor outside and then back to his usual spot he set off again, this time heading higher into the mountains, instead of to the valleys.

Loki walked, almost in a daze, dragging his stick in the dirt behind him to mark a path home, humming to himself gently, running his free hand over the base of a steep orange cliff that had been polished smooth by a millenia of harsh winds and rain. He didn't know how long he had walked when he heard a noise, water, fast flowing water running over rocks and he knew water meant one thing – the possibility of food.

He tracked the sound to a deep crevice, at the bottom of it a ribbon of water churned into white foam. As he looked for a point where the land lowered and he could reach the water he saw it – a small tree with green leaves, hanging over the ravine, and on the ends of its delicate branches were berries. Dozens of them hanging in clusters, red and tempting.

Two or three grew on the side where Loki stood so he plucked one and put it in his mouth. It tasted bitter and wasn't all that pleasant, but he didn't care and grabbed the others that were within easy reach, and shoved those into his mouth too.

The side of the tree that hung out over the ravine was laden with berries, there must have been 50 or more, and Loki hesitantly reached around to take them, knowing it was a terrible idea, but hunger drove him on. He grabbed handfuls of fruit and twigs and threw them back onto the safer ground, he needed to reach further and leant his weight onto the trunk of the tree.

Loki felt the crack vibrate through his hand before he heard it, a sharp noise of the trunk bending, the roots tearing free from the dry dirt with a sound like cloth being torn. He turned and desperately tried to scramble back, but the ground was disappearing beneath his feet, as the roots that held it together came apart. He knew he was going to fall, his legs pumping to try to climb back up, but eventually he landed with a thump, his chest on the edge of the ravine, and his hands scrabbling for purchase. He found nothing to hold onto as the tree fell, and soon he followed it down into the water below.

 

Loki woke, cold to his very bones, his lower half in the water while his shoulders rested on a sandy bank. He remembered falling into the stream with a crash that forced the air from his lungs. Swimming was impossible in the fast flowing foam, he was dashed against rocks and forced back under the water repeatedly until eventually everything turned black.

He was amazed to find himself not only alive, but with all his bones and most of his skin intact. He sat up, feeling an ache in his chest where he had hit the side of the ravine, and looked upstream, wondering how far he had been carried. He hoped it hadn't been far, and most of all he hoped this flat section met up somewhere with the top so he could get home and back to Thor.

He heard a sound and turned his head. Not more than 10 feet where he sat, a goat like creature with curved horns was drinking from the stream, seemingly oblivious to his presence. Loki was too shocked to move at first, terrified he would scare the animal away, and slowly he reached into his tunic and removed his knife. He knew he had one shot and had to kill it outright, if the creature ran, he would not be able to pursue it.

Loki held his breath, tried to still his shaking hands and threw the knife. The goat let out a breathy screech as the knife penetrated its throat, severing its jugular cleanly, and it took hobbling clumsy steps as the blood gushed from the wound. It staggered round in a circle, its eyes rolling back white, before finally collapsing at the edge of the stream and Loki smiled. They would eat well for many days to come.

 

**

 

It had been dark for many hours by the time Loki had reached the cave, and Thor had been angry until he saw what his brother had brought back.

Their stomachs full on 3 meals a day, they finally felt able to relax for the first time since they had landed in the strange realm. Loki was able to spend more time with Thor now, only leaving to collect wood for the fire, and had returned one day with a branch in the shape of a Y, saying it was time for Thor to start moving about more.

“Don't put any weight on your leg,” he warned, as he hauled Thor up from the floor. “Lean onto the crutch.”

“It is easy to say that brother, it is harder to achieve.”

“I have a surprise waiting for you outside,” Loki said with a grin.

“What is it?”

“If I told you it would not be a surprise.”

It took a long time for Thor half hop, half hobble the short distance to the surprise, and Loki shadowed his every step, ready to catch him if he stumbled. He was sweating heavily by the time they reached the small incline, but smiled when he saw a deep hole in granite rocks filled with water.

“I found it yesterday,” Loki said. “I filled it with ice and let it melt overnight.”

“Loki… You made a bath!”

“We can wash our clothes too, it will be much more civilized than our present conditions. I even turned some of the animals fat into soap.”

“This was an excellent surprise Loki, thank you,” Thor said, as his brother helped him strip out of his clothes, and then turned to remove his own.

“Don't look at me like you've never seen me naked before Thor,” Loki said when he noticed the look on Thor's face after he removed his tunic.

“It is not that, brother,” Thor said, shocked by Loki’s appearance. His spine stuck out from his back, his collar bones formed deep cavities, and every one of his ribs was visible. Loki had never been as well muscled as Thor, but he didn't need to be, Loki had other strengths that used to great advantage and he had often beaten some of Asgards greatest warriors in the ring. “You have lost a lot of weight.”

“You are not a picture of health yourself, Thor.”

“You look considerably more underweight than I.”

“That is because I had less to lose than you,” Loki teased. “Shall we get you in this bath, then?”

It had taken a while to get Thor down the side of the granite hole and into the water without putting any weight on his injured leg and then Loki hopped in after him.

“It is a little chilly,” Thor said.

“I am not finished yet,” Loki replied and swirled his hands around the bath. Bubbles began to rise from the base, tickling their bodies as they climbed to the surface and soon the pool was swirling with hot steaming water.

They took it in turns to wash each others hair and backs and spent a lot of time talking and playfully splashing water before laying back and just enjoying the warmth in companionable silence.

Later Thor lay on his cape as Loki washed their clothes and then laid them on the ground in the sun to dry and then climbed down next to him. They stayed there until the sun was setting then dressed and made their way back to the cave where Loki lit a large fire and they watched the stars together.

 

Loki was half asleep when he felt something brush his hand.

“Stop it, Thor,” he mumbled, still not properly awake and swatted whatever touched him away.

Something growled, a low and grumbling sound, in response. Loki opened his eyes and came face to face with a large cat-like creature, its eyes glinting in the gloom of the cave, its teeth bared at him. He attempted to scuttle back from it, but the wall blocked his movements and suddenly the cat pounced, sinking its teeth into his neck.

Loki cried out in pain and beat his hands against the beast trying to dislodge it, but its jaws held fast. He searched for his knife, but quickly found he had not replaced it after washing his tunic, and he felt his consciousness start to fail as the creature blocked his airway.

Suddenly the cat let out a scream and was flung sideways, as Thor stood beside Loki, wielding his wooden crutch as if it were Mjolnir, but instead of running away and hiding in the dark it pulled back onto its haunches and launched itself at Thor, sinking its teeth into his arm and knocking him to the floor.

Loki was on his feet now, his brain clouded by the blood loss and fueled by adrenaline, he blasted a bolt of flame at the extinguished fire to relight it and then summoned a sharp spike of ice that he slammed into the cats rump. It howled in agony and ran from the cave.

Loki looked down at himself and then the cave floor, seeing his blood splattered everywhere. He ran his hand over his neck, sealing the worst of the tears shut with magic, but found he did not have the energy to replace his missing blood volume. He heard a noise from the back of the cave and turned to see his brother laid on the floor whimpering.

“Hush,” he said as he knelt, running his hand over his arm and healing the small puncture wounds the cat had inflicted upon him. “Everything will be alright now.”

“My leg,” Thor gasped through the pain. “It hurts badly. Worse than before.”

Loki pulled back the material of Thor's breeches and found a mess of blood. A ragged hole in the skin and the gleaming shattered thighbone sticking through it.

“We are ruined!” Loki cried.

 

**

 

Thor woke feeling sweaty and uncomfortable, a mild fever making him feel thirsty, and his leg throbbed in white-hot pain. Loki had tried his best to heal it, but his own blood loss meant that he could only knit the skin partially closed before collapsing back into unconsciousness for a full day.

“The meat is gone, the creature has taken it,” Loki said miserably, poking the embers of the fire with a stick, his skin a sickly pale shade and his neck still crusted with dried blood.

 

Thor hadn't eaten for three days, save for the occasional large black beetle that Loki had brought back and thrust into his hands before stalking back outside. The only sign of life they saw was the raven that would fly over the cave every morning at dawn.

“I will not die in this place waiting for YOU to rescue me!” Thor had heard Loki scream at it one morning as it passed overhead, and then he watched as his brother grasped the hair on either side of his head in his hands, pulling at it furiously with a strangled cry.

Loki’s moods swings were becoming more frequent now. He would alternate between babbling optimism, talking of rescue and laughing till his eyes were damp, and fitful rages where he ranted for hours at a time and blamed Thor for everything.

“This is your fault Thor,” he screamed. “If you had let me fall alone I would not be trapped here looking after you, wasting my magic trying to fix you, and my time trying to fill your gluttonous appetite!”

He paced the cave furiously, wringing his hands together.

“I could have been out there now exploring this whole realm. I could have been in the forests feasting on boar and building myself a fine shelter, but instead I am stuck here with you!”

“Loki… brother.”

“Stop calling me that, I am not your brother!” Loki said viciously, his face twisting in rage.

“Why do you persist in saying that?”

“Odin said we were both born to be kings and he was right, I am Laufey's son Thor, heir to the throne of Jotunheim. Odin stole me. I am not your brother.”

“I do not believe you. You look as Aesir as I do.”

“It is nothing more than Odin's trickery, this is not my true form,” he snapped back.

“Then show me,” Thor said. “Show me your true form, and I will believe you.”

Loki tried to release Odin's spell, staring at his hands, waiting for them to turn blue as they had done before, but nothing happened, and he let out an aggravated growl at his lack of control.

“See brother, you are no more a frost giant than I am.”

“Don't call me that!” Loki shrieked, leapt across the cave and delivered a vicious backhand blow to Thor's face.

Blood trickled down Thor's lip where it had been smashed against his own teeth, and Loki stared in horror at what he had done, then ran from the cave without a word.

“Loki!” Thor shouted after him. “Loki come back.”

Thor waited, but after many hours fell into a light sleep, and was woken later by the cold. It was dark, the fire had gone out and Loki had not returned. Outside a storm raged and Thor couldn't decide if he could hear screaming or it was just the sound of the wind.

 

The next morning, at dawn, Loki walked into the cave, his lips and lower jaw covered in fresh blood, holding something black in his shaking hand.

“Loki what has happened?” Thor asked, worried for his brother's safety and Loki threw the black thing on the floor in front of him, its feathers ruffling in the slight breeze.

It was the Crow, Odin's crow, its throat torn out with a single bite.

“You killed it?” Thor said incredulously. “How will father find us now?”

“Do not eat its wings,” Loki said turning and stalking back out of the cave. “I will need them to fly away.”

 

Thor couldn't remember at what point Loki could no longer hide the extent of his madness as time blurred into one long struggle to survive, and they had long since stopped carving a mark into wall of the cave for every day. His brothers random verbal outbursts had scared him at first, but now he was quite used to seeing Loki wander round the cave, wild-eyed and holding a conversation with someone who wasn't there.

He didn't know if Loki had been driven insane by hunger, or whether this was part of the same illness that has caused him to send the destroyer to Midgard to kill him and the warriors three. Thor banished the memory from his mind, it hurt to think of his friends back home in Asgard. That life was over for now.

 

Thor woke one night to find Loki crouched next to him, his knife in his hand, and a dangerous look in his eyes.

“Shall we cut it off Thor?” he said, licking his dry lips.

“What?” he asked, feeling confused.

“Your leg,” he said with all seriousness. “If you were a wild animal caught in a trap you would bite it off. Maybe that is what we should do too then we can escape.”

“No Loki,” Thor said, terrified that his brother would not listen.

“If I cut it off you will weigh less, and when I collect enough wings I will be able to fly, with you on my back.”

“I prefer to wait for it to heal,” he said. “It will not be long now. Rest brother, perhaps I will feel better in the morning.”

 

Thor woke the next day to find his fever had dropped considerably, and the pain in his leg had diminished, but Loki was lying flat on his back at a right angle to his body. Thor called his name and gently shook his foot, but his brother was deeply unconscious and would not wake.

It was dark before Loki stirred, and Thor estimated that it had been at least half a day or more since his brother had attempted to heal him.

Loki sat up and looked around, confused as if he didn't remember where he was or what he was doing. There were dark circles under his eyes now, as if he hadn't slept in days, he coughed and tried to stand, but collapsed back to the ground quickly.

“Loki,” Thor said trying get his attention, but his brother seemed lost in his own world, trying to stand repeatedly, and falling to the ground till he gave up and dragged his uncoordinated limbs to where his cape lay, and wrapped himself tight inside it in a small whimpering ball.

 

**

 

Loki had been talking to himself all day, alternating between laughing and crying, before finally turning to look at Thor.

“How long does it take a Jotun to starve to death do you think?” he asked.

“You are not a Jotun, brother.”

“I am. Laufey was my father. He was my father and I killed him.”

“No Loki, you killed Laufey to protect Odin. Odin is your father and mine.”

“I did not want to be king,” he babbled, shivering and tucking his knees up towards his chest, “But Mother told me to make him proud, and I thought if I did he would love me like he loved you.”

“Brother, you look cold,” Thor said holding his hand out. “Come lay with me here, I will keep you warm.”

Loki looked hesitant for a second, then dragged himself across the floor and settled into Thor's arms.

“No one could love a monster such as I,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

“Then you cannot be a monster, because I love you,” Thor said, gently stroking his hair.

 

**

 

“Thor wake up!” Loki shouted excitedly, shaking his brother and trying to rouse him from a deep sleep. “I saw Odin today. He was wearing strange clothes. I called to him, but I think he was too far away to hear me.”

“He will come for us soon,” Thor said, knowing Loki was hallucinating again, but not wanting to anger him by saying he had imagined it.

Loki sat down next to him and idly picked at the cracked skin that stretched paper-thin and torn over his prominent cheekbones. Little more than a walking skeleton now, his hair had grown patchy behind his ears where it had started to fall out, and in his fevered state Thor had considered the possibility that perhaps Loki was telling the truth about being Jotun, and frost giants simply did not fare as well as Aesir in a desert such as this.

“I drew arrows in the dirt with a stick and on the rocks with a stone so he can find us!”

“That was a very clever idea,” Thor said, trying to placate his near hysterical brother.

“Now we just have to wait for him to find us, it will not take long,” he said with a beaming smile which caused blood to seep from the sore on his cheek.

Loki waited patiently for days by the entrance of the cave, scratching dead skin from his body, but Odin did not arrive.

 

 

The foul smell of decay prevented Thor from sleeping. The cave was a desolate stinking hole now, they hadn't had a fire or water for long time, and he couldn't remember the last time they ate. His leg throbbed constantly, seeping yellow fluid across the floor from the ragged edges of the fiery red wound.

Thor watched, his brow glistening with sweat, as his brother stirred for the first time in days, scrabbling at the dirt for a second, desperately trying to push himself from his prostrate position, his arms shaking with effort, and then failing altogether.

“We're going to die,” Loki said.

Thor was suddenly terrified. Loki was the one who had kept him going, telling him constantly that they would be rescued, and to hear him sound so broken, defeated and resigned to his fate filled him with fear.

“No Loki,” Thor said, “They will come.”

“They will be too late,” he replied and closed his eyes again. “It will be no less than I deserve.”

Despite the pain Thor dragged himself across the floor of the cave to where Loki lay, and cradled the back of his brother's head with a large hand. He couldn't tell if he was too hot from his fever or Loki was too cold, but the temperature difference alarmed him. He pulled Loki’s head and shoulders onto his lap, hoping to offer him a little comfort, but only succeeded in scaring himself further when he noticed the shallowness of his brothers breathing, and the way his heartbeat would alternate between racing and deathly slow.

“Do not give up hope brother. Father will come,” Thor said, and then realized he was mostly trying to convince himself.

He pulled Loki up into a tight embrace and held him close, until Loki raised his hand, pawing at the air weakly till Thor caught it.

“You should not share my fate, brother,” Loki whispered and Thor felt a tingle where their skin touched, and felt his burning fever fade slightly. His brothers stuttering breaths finally stilled and then Thor closed his eyes hoping it would be over for him soon too.

 

**

 

Even behind his closed eyelids Thor was aware of the blinding whiteness of his surroundings.

“Mother?” he asked, his throat dry and scratchy from thirst, forcing his eyes open and seeing a womans face in front of him.

“Sir? You've been in an accident but you're safe now,” she said slowly. “Can I ask your name?”

“Thor,” he coughed. “My name is Thor.”

She held a small cup to his lips and he drank cool, clean water.

“Just a small amount now Thor,” she said taking the cup away from his lips.

“Where am I?” he asked looking around the room.

“You were brought here by helicopter, you were found in a cave. You're in Grand Junction hospital,” She noticed Thor's confused look.

“I am on Midgard?” he said looking around him, and the nurse looked slightly worried.

“We're about 200 miles west of Denver,” she said, trying to explain.

“My brother…” he said sadly, remembering the feel of Loki's cold limp body in his arms briefly. “He did not survive”

“No, unfortunately it was too late to save him.”

“He was not left in the cave was he?” Thor asked, panicking for a second at the idea of Loki being left behind.

“No, he's here in the hospital,” the nurse replied. “How did you end up so far out in the park? People rarely hike that far out, and it was just by chance that a ranger saw your brother.”

“We fell,” Thor replied and then, his brow furrowing, he asked, “Someone saw my brother?”

“Yes, about a week before we found you he shouted to someone across a ravine, but it took a while for the search team to track you down,” The nurse explained and Thor realized that Loki hadn't been hallucinating, he really had seen someone. “They wouldn't have found the cave at all if it hadn't been for the arrows scratched into the dirt.”

“My brother drew them.”

“He must have been very smart then,” she said and Thor nodded. “He saved your life.”

“Yes, he did,” Thor replied.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was massively influenced by my love of the film _127 Hours_ hence the crow flying overhead every day.


End file.
